


Blood Diamonds

by Fox_Salz



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Injury, Depression, Existentialism, Game Over Timeline, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, background dirkuu, but it's not graphic, let's be real Karkat has that in spades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 10:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20487584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_Salz/pseuds/Fox_Salz
Summary: Karkat wakes up to a clownsprise.





	Blood Diamonds

**Author's Note:**

> Alright I didn't quite get this out for the end of [gamkar month](https://miraculous-miracrails-month.tumblr.com), but here it is. Some sadder gamkar from my previous one. Because I have a lot of gamkar and clown feels.

“You stupid fucking clown disaster.”

There’s more Karkat wants to say—so much more, years worth of words—but he settles on this. Gamzee Motherfucking Makara just smiles up at him. His makeup is smudged, the grease clearly seeping into the three diagonal scars on his face; Karkat’s hands twitches with the desire to clean it. Instead he balls them into fists, fronds digging into his palms. The mild pain is enough to focus his mind on the matter at hand. Namely, why there’s a goddamn clown from his past on his lawnring when the sun is just setting. It’s far too early for whatever bullshit this is.

“Sorry, Karbro. Ain’t motherfucking necessary to the narrative no more—more like the narrative ain’t exactly a thing no longer—so this pimpass ninja can bleed right the fuck out. Which I up and am doing right the fuck this tick tock.”

There was so much there that it takes Karkat a moment to zero in on the very alarming _bleeding out_ part. Panic seizes him. His eyes rake Gamzee’s thin, disheveled frame, finally noticing that through the tatters of his fake godtier are numerous bloody injuries. As the sky gets darker his eyes adjust better, taking it all in.

Karkat is on his knees beside Gamzee before he registers moving. He’s looking him over, twisting Gamzee around to get a better look at everything. There are scratches and gashes and nasty bruises and _holy shit_ are those bullet holes?

Frankly, Gamzee looks like shit. Like if a baby cholerbear took a shit, then an adult cholerbear ate that shit and promptly vomited it back out. Except in purple. _So much purple_.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

Gamzee positively beams and replies,”Homestuck.”

Then the bastard snorts like he said something funny. Karkat isn’t sure if he should blame it on the blood loss or if he has serious pan damage. Possibly a concussion. Karkat wishes he knew how to check for that.

“Okay, come on. We need to get you inside.”

Karkat stands, pulling on Gamzee’s arm. He gets to his feet, smiling like a guy not getting blood all over Karkat’s garden. Karkat tries not to look at any of it, tries to ignore his budding nausea and panic. He falls back into his old safety mechanism: anger.

“I shouldn’t even be doing this, you dumb shitty bastard clownfuck. I can’t believe how stupid you are showing your face at my hive, for that matter! Are you suicidal? I attacked you last time we saw each other. You know—_right before you killed me_.”

Gamzee is still smiling as they make their way to Karkat’s ablutionblock. It’s more subdued, however, and he won’t look directly at Karkat. For some reason that makes his pump biscuit clench.

“Here,” Karkat says, directing him onto the loadgaper seat. “Don’t you move a goddamn muscle. If you do I swear I’ll get out my sickles.”

There’s no real bite to the words, and Gamzee obviously realizes this. All the same he nods and leans back, hand on his abdomen. Blood seeps through his fingers. It takes Karkat a moment to tear his eyes away from the sight, swallowing down bile.

He focuses on wetting a rag, filling the sink with water, and gathering some other supplies. He’s aware of Gamzee’s eyes on him. Karkat doesn’t look back over. He wants to. He doesn’t know what to do.

But eventually he has to, once he has everything he needs. Gamzee’s face brightens instantly, like a wiggler who hasn’t seen his lusus for a long time but then there he is.

Karkat lowers his eyes to all those wounds.

Through all the blood he’s seen he’s both stronger and weaker for it, in ways he can’t quite explain. It doesn’t make much sense to him, but hey—ain’t that his fucking life? Either way, he brings up his step stool and settles down beside Gamzee. It’s hard to know where to start.

“Ain’t as nasty as it looks, Karkat.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean it’s not nasty. Just keep still and let me work, Gamzee.”

His name rolls easily off Karkat’s tongue. Like something that was missing for so long you barely remember it until it’s found again, dusty but nostalgic.

A feeling he can’t describe shoots through him. A feeling he doesn’t want to think about.

So instead he shoves it deep, _deep_ the fuck down in the unfathomable depths of his emotion ocean and gets to work.

Karkat uses his claws to rip away the material of Gamzee’s fake godtier from the injuries. Then he carefully starts wiping up blood to see just what all the damage is. Surprisingly the numerous bullet holes aren’t where the blood is coming from. They look old, scabbed over, healed. Probably fine. He’s got plenty of other scars, too, that Karkat can’t help running his fingertips over. For a moment he gets lost in them, until Gamzee lets out a distressed chitter and Karkat is brought back to the task at hand.

“Where does it hurt?”

“Gonna have to go with motherfucking everywhere.”

Well that’s not fucking helpful, and also incredibly alarming.

“I need you to be more specific. I realize that you fucked most of your braincells over but I’m sure even you can manage to tell me what I need to be tending here.”

A voice in the back of Karkat’s thinkpan screams how vile he is for being such an absolute bulge to someone _bleeding out_. Another voice says it’s Gamzee so fuck him. A third voice points out that they used to be moirails, shouldn’t he be more sensitive?

A fourth voice, one that has been haunting him for sweeps, questions not for the first time if Karkat was ever a good moirail to begin with.

Nope! No time to ruminate on all his numerous past mistakes. That is for the middle of the day when he‘s lying wide awake in his human style bed or pitiful pile unable to sleep. Karkat mentally tells those voices to shut their goddamn trap and looks around for the source or sources of pain.

Softly Karkat pushes at tender skin, noting Gamzee’s reactions. Every intake of breath, every flinch, a groan that tugged on his biscuit. He finds a gash finally that has him biting his lip in worry. No way he can stitch it if that’s what it needs, so he does his best to wrap it up tight. It’s like Gamzee’s trying not to make a peep, not even a stray honk. For some reason that just makes Karkat feel worse.

He wishes that everyone who’d godtiered had kept their powers after the game. Or even better, the game had at least rewarded them for being useful to the main—_winning_—timeline with powers for everyone. Alas, Paradox Space was cruel, and there was no one who could just magic away Gamzee’s injuries. Karkat was his only choice.

“Why didn’t you go to a doctor, Gamzee? This isn’t Alternia, you won’t be culled.”

Gamzee gives a slow shrug.

“Fuck, you could have gone to any number of people that aren’t me! Dave—no you hate him. Rose, though. Except she lives with Kanaya who would chainsaw your clown ass in half all over again.”

Gamzee chuckles. Karkat furrows his brow.

“Alright, so maybe there aren’t a bunch of options for you, but I’m still not sure why you settled on me instead of Feferi or someone less likely to rip your sphincter out and shove it back down your throat.”

“Why up and toss myself at someone that wasn’t my miraculous best friend?” he rasps, giving that big goofy grin that dredges up memories from before the meteor and makes Karkat want to cry. He looks away, back down at a spot of blood that blends in with Gamzee’s stupid bard pants.

“Best friends don’t try to kill each other, asshole.”

“I can’t get my remember on for a lot of those bad nasty shenanigans, brother. Big spider bitch done got me wrapped up in her web, and everyone else were the struggling flies she got her fine maw around for grub time.”

“Yeah,” Karkat says, swallowing. His claw picks at some dry blood. “I know all about Aranea now. What I don’t know is how much was her, and how much was you. She didn’t make you kill Equius and Nepeta, after all.”

“That she the fuck did not, Karkat.”

He doesn’t say anything else, and Karkat doesn’t break the heavy silence. After a moment he feels Gamzee shift, hand hovering near Karkat’s head. Karkat leans towards him, just a fraction, but it’s enough encouragement for him to make the plunge and pet Karkat’s hair.

“So, what? Can’t blame highblood rage—learned that’s just a crock of bullshit. And I don’t think withdrawal makes someone a killer or else Rose would have shoved a knitting needle between my eyes sweeps ago. What exactly was it that made you do all that, Gamzee?”

Karkat hates the break in his voice betraying how close he is to tears. Gamzee’s touch doesn’t help. Too pale, too painful. Needing to focus on something else, he goes back to tending wounds. There are still several more scratches that need to be bandaged, though thankfully nothing as severe as the first one. Still it’s a good thing Gamzee’s a troll and not a squishy human.

His movements eventually shrug Gamzee’s hand off and he lets it fall into his lap. Gamzee still doesn’t say another word, and it both concerns and infuriates Karkat. Fangs gnashing, he gives in and breaks the silence.

“Haven’t you had enough of not saying shit? Of only giving cryptic nonsense answers? We aren’t playing a game anymore, Gamzee. _Speak_.”

To Karkat’s utter bafflement that makes Gamzee _smile_. It lights up his whole face like a goddamn miracle happened right before his sight orbs. Karkat doesn’t know what the fuck to think, but Gamzee’s talking so he forces himself to just focus on that.

“I’m all up in the business in following what is goddamn necessary, brother, a righteous guardian juggalo. Done some wicked nasty shit, Karkat, some shit that had to happen both under influences and while up in a clear pan. But it was all for the bigger picture, the juggling club of Damocles hanging above our heads, my best motherfucker. “

Karkat reaches up, taking Gamzee’s face between his hands. Looking him right in the eyes he says, voice level, “Gamzee, you are a goddamn flabbergasting, nonsensical chucklefuck that is a bane on my peace of fucking mind. Every word out of your mouth is a new special torture against my auditory sponges bringing me that much closer to my inevitable death by self implosion just to get away from whatever the bulgeshiting _fuck_ is coming out of your nonsense gob.”

Somehow Gamzee only looks more delighted, eyes sparkling.

“I missed you, too, best friend.”

“How the shitting fuck is that what you got out of my diatribe?”

Gamzee doesn’t respond, instead sweeping Karkat into a tight hug that buries Karkat’s face in his chest. It takes a moment for Karkat’s pan to even comprehend what’s going on. His defenses should be on high, he should be scrambling out of Gamzee’s hold, but despite everything Karkat is above all a sap. He melts into the messy embrace, eyes closing to hold back a prickling of tears. God he’s so pathetic. But this isn’t a new revelation, not by a long shot, it’s just that he’s found whole new depths of it.

Finally Gamzee eases up a bit, and Karkat takes the opportunity to pull back—just enough to look up at him, not shake out of the touch.

“You need a shower. Five of them. Hot enough to burn off all the dead goddamn skin.”

Gamzee laughs.

“Ain’t gonna argue that, brother. Don’t think I got the energy for it, though.”

“Well, I should have shoved you in the ablution trap before slapping a bunch of bandages on you, anyway. Good thing cleanliness isn’t next to clownliness. What you really need is food, rest, and someone who’s actually a goddamn professional who knows what they’re doing.”

“Aww, your concern touches my pump biscuit in all sorts of tender ways, but that’s not necessary, Karkat. I trust your care taking skills.”

“I will never understand how you made it this far in life. Haven’t you learned not to trust me with anything yet? I’m a disaster, Gamzee. The goddamn worst example not only of trollmanity but of all sapient life forms. I never know what I’m doing, and every time I try I fuck it up so bad for everyone.”

“It ain’t like that at all—“

“Shoosh, motherfucker, I am talking,” Karkat snaps gently, possibly reaching just the edge of hysteria. “It’s true and that’s _fine_. I mean it! Paradox Space needed someone completely incompetent, someone who pretended like he was useful, like he could manage the simplest goddamn task, and so it hatched me out! I used to think it was a mistake of the mothergrub, but now I know it was purposeful lack of quality. I was hatched to be the weakest link, and by sweet fuck did I live up to that incompetence with every ounce of uselessness inside of me.”

Gamzee’s smile is softer now, gazing at Karkat with a look that makes him ache. He has to look away.

“Sburb is a cruel unrighteousness, brother, but it done hatched my best friend and that all up and counts for something.”

“Gamzee-“

He paps Karkat, a quick but firm touch that has him blinking in shock.

“Just gotta remember the narrative’s dead in a way I ain’t ever been, in a way as to meaning what happens now is all up to us, motherfucker. Our choices matter to us, they ain’t gotta be one set way for one set timeline to get its alpha on. Now that’s what I call a—“

“Miracle,” Karkat finishes, sighing. It makes Gamzee beam.

“Best friend,” he says with such reverence it makes Karkat’s stomach flip. He’s not sure if it’s a good sort of flip or negative. He doesn’t want to think about it.

“I’m going to get you something to eat. When you were crushing me to your clowny bosom I could hear your nutrient sack growl like it was begging for help.”

“Heh. Sounds motherfucking spectacular, Karbro.”

“I wasn’t actually giving you a choice. I would shove it down your maw if I had to, Gamzee.”

This makes Gamzee look downright giddy. Karkat grabs a clean cloth, quickly dunks it in the water, and tosses it at the clown’s face.

“Wipe yourself down while I’m gone. I don’t need blood everywhere. And don’t pull any disappearing act or something stupid like that. I swear I’ll hunt you and drag your sorry ass back.”

“Ain’t nothing to get your worry on about that, my fine motherfucker. Nowhere else I gotta be. Nowhere else I wanna be.”

“You can’t just _say_ something like that, Gamzee.”

“Why? It’s the deepest motherfucking truth of my pusher, Karkat. Can’t be deny it.”

“Sweet fucking hell, I don’t even know what to say to that.”

His cheeks burn and he’s sure he’s obviously red. He can’t muster up a response so he doesn’t, letting out a chitter that conveys all the bundle of emotions bubbling up to the surface, and leaves Gamzee there.

Karkat thankfully has a solidly stocked nutritionblock at the moment. Kanaya sent him copious amounts of hivecooked food just yesterday, and Equius sent over milk from his moobeasts when Nepeta brought fresh meat that Karkat shuddered thinking too hard about. So there was plenty for Gamzee.

Karkat warms up a generous helping of fried cluckbeast and mashed potatoes. He tries not to contemplate what the fuck is happening. Which was that he is feeding his killer clown of an ex-moirail who had switched his babbling about messiah for narrative freedom or whatever.

God, what would Kanaya think about her food being eaten by Gamzee? At least Equius, the one time he’d ever talked to Karkat about him, had given a dodgy non answer about everything needing to happen a certain way.

Karkat feels like he is harboring a fugitive.

“It’s never goddamn ending, is it?” he mumbles to himself.

Karkat runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends. It is early still, and already proving to be such a long night.

Food in hand, Karkat returns upstairs. He had left the door open and now pops his head in. There’s Gamzee, standing shirtless at the sink, water tinged lavender. There’s a pale pang in Karkat’s pump biscuit. He shakes his head, trying to banish it to no avail.

“If you’re done come on. You’re not eating in the ablutionblock like some lusus locked away so it doesn’t bother guests.”

Gamzee follows him, still all smiles, to his bedroom. Since this world doesn’t have the need for recuperacoons Karkat has a hardly used bed and a pile that’s in disarray which matches his life. The latter is where he directs Gamzee who tosses himself onto it and snuggles against part of a tangled fleece blanket poking up through the rest of the mess. Karkat lets him get comfy—which he almost instantly seems to—before laying the tray in his lap.

“There’s plenty more so eat up. Maybe you can stop looking like a tall orphan who never had a full meal in his life.”

Gamzee, already biting into a drumstick, hums.

Karkat stands there watching for a moment, an awkward asshole who doesn’t know what to do. He should go sit on the bed or the computer chair over at his desk, or hell just leave Gamzee there to eat alone. Before he can do any of that, though, Gamzee is patting the spot beside him. Karkat hesitates a moment before climbing up next to him.

Because it’s sunk in where Gamzee is taking up the middle, Karkat can’t help pressing up against him. Silently he curses himself for cobbling together a poorly structured pile instead of taking the time to reinforce it. But it wasn’t like he was sharing it with anybody so why bother? That had been his shitty reasoning which was more of an excuse to wallow in his own goddamn melancholy.

Gamzee scarfs down the rest of his meal with Karkat watching in silence, curling his hands around each other so he won’t do something stupid like reach out and touch him.

Karkat hates that he wants to. Hates that he wants to make up for past mistakes that apparently had to happen as dictated by existence its-fucking-self. He hates that he’s been a failure in everything he’s ever done—and the worst part, the absolute worst part, is he can’t even fully blame himself. It’d be so much better if he could, if he had just been a useless piece of shit on his own merits, but no. Apparently he was _hatched_ specifically to drag everyone else down one way or another. Paradox Space’s little cosmic joke.

“Seem all lost up in your own pan, my motherfucker. Care to share with this clown? I’m all fucking auditory sponges.”

“And I’m all fucking not about to spill my biscuit to anyone, let alone some clown asshole who just decided to waltz back into my life out of nowhere and bleed all over my lawnring.”

“Heh, can’t fault you none there, brother. But this clown asshole means it, oh best friend. I wanna be here. And I am. And not a goddamn thing do I gotta do that’ll take me from you again because I up and finished my wicked business, even done got Calibro back to his Strider, and now we got nothing but the taste of _freedom_, and ain’t that motherfucking miracles?”

“Gamzee?”

“Yes, Karkat?”

He peers at Karkat with wide, hopeful genuineness.

“Drink your goddamn milk.”

With a snicker he does, peeking at Karkat from the corner of his ocular orb as he downs it in one go.

“How do you feel?” Karkat asks when he’s done, voice softer and more sincere than he’d intended.

“Like my normal motherfucking pimpass ninja self, brother. But also like a new goddamn clown.”

“Don’t you start spouting off duality shit, I only barely tolerate it from Sollux.”

Gamzee laughs, and it’s a mix of a honk and the jingle of bells. Which is somehow both a sound that warms Karkat all over, and a knife to his fucking auditory sponges. Motherfucking duality.

“Do I need to take you to the hospital now?” Gamzee shakes his head. Karkat still wants to, though. Doesn’t trust his own patch job. Not even because of self loathing, just goddamn common sense—something Gamzee lacks. “Well, if you start fucking bleeding again I will drag you there, mark my goddamn words.”

“Highlighted and underlined, best friend.”

Karkat resists the urge to gnash his teeth, much, and tells him, “Get some fucking rest, Gamzee.”

Before Karkat can react Gamzee turns on his side and pulls Karkat flush against him, face nuzzling against his neck. Karkat can feel old face paint greasing up his skin. Just great. He doesn’t throw the fit he rightfully should, though, doesn’t scream at Gamzee to let him go. There’s a lot more they need to discuss, of course, a lot more he needs to get off his chest and _understand_, but that’s for later. Right now Karkat just sighs, closes his eyes, and basks in a presence he’d forgotten how much he missed.

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing to say except that I love Gamzee, Karkat, and gamkar goodnight.


End file.
